


now and later

by professortennant



Category: Bon Appétit Test Kitchen RPF, Chef RPF
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/M, Fluff, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-17 23:48:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20629571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/professortennant/pseuds/professortennant
Summary: He likes when she gets like this, confident and smug as hell. Because she knows she nailed the monkey bread currently cooling in their kitchen and she can have anything she wants—himself included—any time.He’s happy to indulge her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> RPF. Seriously, let's keep this between you, me, and the rest of this weird corner of the internet.

When the bed dips and he feels her carefully roll out from underneath his arm and slip out of bed, he doesn’t question it. Not anymore. 

Inspiration strikes at the oddest of moments and it doesn’t matter that he’s purchased her stacks of notebooks (cat themed ones, donut themed ones, coffee themed ones, all abandoned). It doesn’t matter that he actually _made_ her a notebook with his own two hands—made the paper and the leather binding and everything with a buddy of his upstate. 

(Okay, that one had mattered a little bit because she’d touched the cover with reverent fingertips and looked at him with those big, brown eyes of hers and she’d tossed the notebook onto the couch before launching herself at him and showing him her appreciation with her mouth and tongue and—)

The point is, when Claire rolls out of bed in the wee hours of the morning, Brad doesn’t blink anymore. Instead, he throws an arm over his eyes and listens as she assembles her ingredients and tools in the kitchen and sets to work. Felix bumps his head against Brad’s hand with a gentle _meow_ and he scratches the cuddly cat behind the ear. 

“C’mon, bud. Let’s go see what she’s doing now.”

It’s what he does, now. He scoops up a pillow and sleepily pads out into the living room where he plops down onto the couch, still half-sleeping, and dozes on and off. The sound of her mixing and kneading butter and flour and sugar lull him into a sort of hazy snooze. He’s a goner when the oven gets turned on and the entire apartment warms and she puts her latest concoction in to bake and the scent of vanilla and cinnamon and clove and orange zest fill the room.

Twenty minutes later, the couch cushion dips as she settles herself against him and shakes him awake gently.

“Brad, _Brad. _C’mon, wake up. I need you to try this.”

He blinks a bleary eye up at her. She’s radiant above him, cheeks flushed with color and dotted with flecks of flour. A piece of exceptionally gooey bread covered in some sort of fragrant, sticky syrup hovers in front of his face and he grins at her.

“Morni—“

He doesn’t even get the greeting out before she pushes the sticky, sweet bread into his mouth and begins rambling a million words a minute, like she just couldn’t wait for him to finally wake up so she could talk to him, never mind the fact that it’s almost 4 in the morning. 

“It was the clove! I needed more honey to balance the clove and then I added the orange zest to balance it and it _works. _Right, though? You think it works—the spice and the warmth and the sweetness and the—“

He puts a finger to her lips to shush her and very generously ignores the roll of her eyes as she pushes his hand away. “You gonna let a guy give his feedback or what, Claire?”

She huffs. “Okay, okay. What do you think, _Brad?”_

He pretends to think for a moment before wrapping his fingers back around her wrist and pulling her fingers to his mouth, gently licking and sucking at the remnants of the sticky sweet syrup that remain. 

As his tongue swirls around each digit, he keeps his eyes on her. Her eyes are bright and her lips are parted, her chest picking up speed as he works his tongue over each sensitive patch of skin. 

Brad loves mornings like this, the ones where she is in her element and queen of her domain. The mornings when she is unstoppable and the pastry universe _does_ open up for her—because why wouldn’t it? She’s Claire Saffitz and when she puts her mind to something, when she takes it apart to its bare bones and puts it back together again better than before, magic happens.

He would know. She’d been breaking him down and building him up anew since the day they met. He’s a better man for it and he loves her more every day.

A wet _pop_ fills the room when he lets her now-clean fingers go from his mouth and he shoots her a shit-eating grin. “Just needed a second taste. To be sure.”

“Uh-huh,” she says, eyes focused on his glistening, grinning mouth and leaning forward, already anticipating the kiss she knows is coming.

He cards his hands through her hair and cups her jaw in his hand. “Thought you wanted my feedback?”

“Shut up.”

She leans over him where he still lays on the couch and presses her mouth to his, tongue swiping at every corner of his mouth to chase the remnants of the spiced syrup and find his own unique taste underneath it all. 

He likes when she gets like this, confident and smug as hell. Because she knows she nailed the monkey bread currently cooling in their kitchen and she can have anything she wants—himself included—any time. 

He’s happy to indulge her.

With a tug on her hip, he pulls her atop him and deepens the kiss as she settles herself against him, fingers curling into the thin fabric of his sleep shirt. To his surprise—and really, he shouldn’t have been—he’d found out early on that Claire wasn’t much for foreplay. She would get impatient and edgy, tugging at his shirt and working at his belt to get to the main event as soon as possible. 

But Brad liked to take his time, wanted to devote hours if she’d let him, to each part of her body in an attempt to show her how much he loved her. And tonight was no different, even if she was rocking down against his rapidly hardening cock and slipping a hand between their bodies to palm him. 

He hissed at the feel of her palm against him and he broke the kiss, gathering her hair in one hand and pulling it aside so he could lean up and nip at her neck in rebuke. “Christ, Claire,” he panted against her skin. “Wait, wait.”

The pale skin of her neck bloomed red and purple under the ministrations of his teeth and tongue and she groaned his name, ran her fingers through his unruly curls and scratched at his neck, as if unsure if she wanted to press his mouth closer or push him away.

“Don’t wanna wait,” she whined, pressing deep kisses against his mouth, sucking at his tongue. She pulled away and straightened up, balancing herself in his lap with a hand on his chest. Deliberately, she rocked down against him and circled her hips, mimicking the motion of what she wanted exactly. 

He reached up and palmed her breast, squeezing gently and flicking the pad of his thumb over her nipple where it was pebbled and hard against the fabric of her sleep shirt. His heart rate doubled as she threw her head back and groaned, covered his hand with her own and encouraged him to squeeze a little harder.

“C’mere,” he insisted, sitting up and wrapping her up in his arms. She wound her arms around his shoulders and neck and clung to him, laughing and breathless, as he carefully rearranged her so she sat on the edge of the couch. He slid to his knees on the floor in front of her and gently nudged her legs apart. 

He looked up at her and grinned at the flushed, anticipatory expression on her face, her bottom lip sucked between her teeth, and her fingertips reaching for him. Something warm and fierce filled his chest as she stroked her fingertips over his brow and jawline and his bottom lip. He nipped at the pads of her fingers and pushed his head against her hands. Being touched by Claire never ceased to make him hot all over, even if it was something as simple as her fingers on his face. 

Claire deserved this—today and every day—someone worshipping at her feet and touching her like she was precious. Brad just felt lucky he was the lucky son of a bitch who nabbed the job. 

“Lay back.”

She does as she’s told—always trusting him to take care of her. He reached up to trail a hand over the curve of her neck and down the center of her chest, brushing over her breasts teasingly, and settling low on her stomach. If she was naked and in their bed, spread out beneath him, he’d cover her body with his and get his mouth on her, suck and nip at her breasts until they were dotted with the marks of his teeth and lips. 

He pushes the hem of her shirt up and plants a soft, open mouthed kiss on the gentle round of her stomach, kissing his way down the short journey to the waistband of her boxer shorts. Well, _his _boxer shorts that she’d stolen for her own on their first night together. They’re ratty and covered in cartoon aliens, but Claire seems to love them more the rattier and more faded they get.

(Maybe it’s a sentimental thing of her, signs of their relationship aging and enduring like the boxer shorts. If it is, she’d never admit to it).

He considers drawing this out longer, thinks about getting creative by using his teeth to pull and tug at the fabric. But he wants them off now. No time for games.

She sighs his name in the darkness of their apartment, lifts her hips for him as he tugs off the boxers. He throws the material into a corner of the living room and settles between her legs, lifts one of her legs over his shoulder and encourages her to widen her legs a little for him. 

He can feel her getting impatient from the tension in her thighs but he doesn’t want to rush this. 

“Brad,” she breathes out, reaching for his head to pull him to her, to put his mouth exactly where she wants him. But he dodges her hands with a rueful grin and nuzzles against the inside of her thigh, liking the way she shivers at the feel of his beard scraping against her sensitive skin. 

He nips and kisses his way over her left thigh first, then her right, kissing higher and higher until he’s _just_ short of where she’s wet and glistening and hot for him. 

“Jesus Christ,” she whines. “Brad, _c’mon_.”

She’s impatient and he grins against her skin before considering her for a moment. He decides he’s dragged this out long enough—for both of them. 

The first drag of his tongue across her sex is an explosion for them both. She keens and clutches at his head, lifts her hips up and presses closer into his mouth to give him better access. For Brad, there is no better taste in the world than the taste of her wet and wanting, slick and sticky against his tongue and lips. 

There’s a lot of things Brad doesn’t know how to do—he doesn’t know the fancy French names for half the shit he can do in the kitchen, has no idea about turning and folding bread, and struggles with the pronunciation of half of the English language. But touching Claire? Making her writhe and twist on the couch under his tongue and fingers, making her cry out his name and beg him for _more, more, more_?

This he knows how to do. 

He licks at her with the broadside of his tongue before switching things up and pressing a thumb at the apex of her sex, rubbing tight circles over her clit until her legs shake uncontrollably and her hips press up, begging for more, begging for release. 

The muscles of his tongue go taut and stiff and he dips his tongue into her opening, licks and prods in tandem with each flick of his thumb against her. She’s dripping wet and he can feel her slickness coat his tongue and lips and chin. His favorite taste in the world. 

Around his shoulders, her legs shake and clench and he knows she’s close. Her nails scrape at his shoulders and head, tug at his hair and scratch at his scalp, as she tries to find an anchor in a sea of endless pleasure courtesy of his mouth and fingers. 

He knows what she needs. She knows it, too, but he wants her to say it. She started this, after all. She dragged them both out of bed at ungodly hours and if she wants release, she’ll have to ask for it.

It doesn’t take her long to break under the onslaught of his unrelenting mouth. 

“Fingers,” she gasps, clutching at the couch pillows, knuckles white. He looks up at her from his position between his legs, his tongue still inside of her, and takes her in: wild hair and eyes, cheeks and chest flushed, and her mouth swollen from where she’s bitten down to conceal her cries and groans of pleasure. 

But she’s done as he wanted and he’ll give her what she wants. With a long, lingering suck on her clit, he slides two fingers inside of her. She gasps at the sensation and clutches at his shoulders, her words a mindless babble of _Oh god, Brad, Brad, please, Brad._ _Please._

She’s hot and tight around his fingers, pulsing and clenching with each thrust and he knows he can get her off like this. With his free hand, he palms himself through his pajama pants, just enough to take the edge off so he doesn’t come in his pants like a teenager. But that’s what Claire does to him, makes him hot and horny and hungry for her. 

He may struggle to focus on the best of days, but focusing on her, on her pleasure, is like second nature. Fingers slip easily in and out of her, fingertips curling and stroking at her inner walls. Mouth licks and sucks at her clit, tongue flicking out to double her pleasure. And his free hand wraps itself around his cock, wrapping tightly at the base and squeezing to stave off his own orgasm. 

It’s a symphony he knows how to conduct well and in a few minutes, under his attentions, Claire comes, lifts her hips and curls her fingers against her own breast, squeezing, and calls out his name. He feels her clench around his fingers, feels her go wet and hot and molten, her wetness rushing over his fingers and mouth. 

When she collapses back against the couch, boneless and limp, she half-heartedly tugs at his shoulders. “Come here.”

He doesn’t deny her anything and he’s not about to start now. On his knees, he lifts his head from between her legs and pulls his fingers out of her. When she kisses him, she sucks and licks the taste of herself off of his tongue and sighs into his mouth, loosely wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling him closer in between the cradle of her thighs. 

He carefully kisses his way across her jawline, gets his mouth on the lean line of her neck, and swirls his tongue into the hollow of her throat. Later, he’ll take her by the hand and laugh when she stumbles and needs to lean on him to walk straight. Later, he’ll lead her back to their bedroom as the rest of the city wakes up and make love to her, fill her with his cock and his fingers and brush her hair back from her face and tell her she’s beautiful and incredible and he’s a lucky son-of-a-bitch and he loves the hell out of her. 

But that is later.

Now, he wraps his arms around the woman who holds his heart and lets the stench of sex and warm, spicy, sticky monkey bread envelop them both as their heart rates return to normal. 

Now, he just loves her. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-Hot Pockets. Yeah.

There are some days when she leaves the kitchen with her head down, disappearing inside of her own brain and turning over each and every thought, every step and mistake, wondering where she went wrong and what she needs to tweak and perfect and get _better._

There are days when she storms out of the kitchen with barely a goodbye, frustration and stress bursting from her that she takes out on the treadmill at the gym or on the paved trails of Central Park. 

Today is not one of those days. 

Today, she made Hot Pockets her bitch, made some of the most incredible flaky pastry the BA Test Kitchen has every seen (on accident no less, she’s just _that_ good), and did it all in record time. 

There was a good energy in the kitchen today, something magic. 

“Brad, babe, I’m telling you I was a pastry _goddess_ today.”

They’re sitting much like they were earlier today in the test kitchen. She’s perched on a stool next to him while he works at the stove, his favorite wooden spoon in hand, and humming softly along to the music filtering out through the portable speakers set up in the kitchen. When he’d moved in, it had been the first thing he’d set up.

_(“Claire, c’mon, you can’t cook in _silence_. It’s a crime.” _

_“Brad, you don’t do anything in silence.”_

_“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he’d said with a grin, looping his arm around her waist and pulling her close. “I can think of something that would keep my mouth busy…”)_

“Hell yeah you were a pastry goddess! And_ I_ am your faithful salt bae. Look at that, Claire.” She rolled her eyes as he laughed and raised his hand high over the pan of bubbling lemon butter sauce, peppered with capers, and sprinkled in a healthy pinch of kosher salt. 

Cooking was more than a job for them, it was a lifestyle and in some ways their own personal brand of foreplay. Claire didn’t know watching someone chop and slice and julienne could be so erotic until she saw Brad’s knife skills, the flex of the muscles in his biceps, and the way the tendons in his forearms moved with his motions. 

She liked cooking, but baking was her true domain. But Brad? Brad and cooking was like a fish in water. He cooked like he does everything else: all heart, energy, and gut instinct. It was hypnotizing to watch and part of the reason one of her favorite places in the kitchen was on this stool right here next to him. 

Her hand settled on the back of his thigh and she squeezed gently, silently asking him for a taste in that wordless communication they have. He acquiesced and lifted the spoon to her mouth, warning her softly about it being hot. 

The sauce was bright and buttery and salty in all the right ways and she beamed brightly up at him, nodded, and sneaked her tongue out her mouth to catch every last drop. 

“Careful with that mouth, Saffitz,” he rumbled, leaning down to kiss her softly before turning his attention back to the sauce, lowering the heat on the stove to allow the sauce to just simmer slightly and finish coming together. 

It occurred to her then how _good_ today was. Some of that energy, that all-encompassing success and power and _happiness_ was bubbling beneath her skin still, not quite baked off with the rest of her Hot Pockets. And Brad was right there. Brad, who opened oven doors and was her sounding board and her biggest cheerleader, was here.

She thinks he deserves to feel as good as she does right now. 

Her eyes drifted over the way his pants were slung low over his hips and the hem of his shirt just brushed over his waistband, a thin strip of tan skin exposed. Oklahoma’s sun had darkened his skin and she liked the way that her already-pale skin looked even more luminescent when pressed against him. 

She pushes his shirt up easily—one of her favorites, soft and dark and worn, picked up from one of the barbecue joints down in Texas that he’d visited. It was one of her favorites to grab on weekend mornings when she’d rolled out of bed and needed something warm and _him _to slip over her shoulders.

She leans over and kisses his side, lips pressing into soft flesh. Beneath her mouth, she feels him quiver and she grins against him. Her mouth opens and her teeth graze the soft curve of his side and down, tongue running over the jut of his hip that peeks out from over the top of his waistband. 

“Careful, Claire,” he warns her, knuckles white on the edge of the metal stove. He’s got his eye on the simmering sauce and she doesn’t know if he’s warning her about the sauce bubbling over if he’s distracted or what will happen if she presses the situation.

She wants to find out. 

While she tongues at the salty skin of his side and hip, her fingers work at his belt and tug it free. The leather slides against the fabric and she pulls it from each loop slowly, torturously, before dropping it to the kitchen flood. She sighs when he threads his fingers through her hair and groans her name, her hands unbuttoning his pants and sliding into his boxers to cup him where he’s hot and hard for her. 

“Fuck, babe,” he pants, pushing into her hand. But she barely hears him, so focused, so in control. 

When Brad eventually turns the stove off and turns to face her, she pushes his pants and boxers down his thighs to pool at his ankles and lets her nails scrape over his thighs. 

“Claire,” he groans. “Babe, shouldn’t I be—y’know, for you? _God_.”

And then there’s no more words because her mouth is around him and her tongue is working at the underside of his cock in the clever way that only she can and there are no more thoughts other than _Claire, Claire, Claire_.

She looks up at him with her lips wrapped around him, cheeks hollowed and head bobbing as she works the hard length of him in her mouth. His eyes are dark and focused entirely on hers and she can see him starting to lose control, watches as he clenches his fist and bangs it on the stovetop to stop himself from grabbing a handful of her hair. But she doesn’t want that tonight.She continues to suck at him as she grabs his hand and guides it to her head.

He shivers under her touch and throbs in her mouth in a way that tells her he’s close. His hips thrust into her mouth and he cups her jaw and strokes her cheek, tightens his fingers in her hair.

“Claire,” he pants, feeling out of control.“Please, babe. Please. _Christ_.”

She lets him go with a _pop_ and her lips glisten with the mix of her saliva and his fluid. Above her, he looks wild and unfocused, close to coming undone and the kitchen is filled with music and the sound of him begging her. She did this, she made him beg for her. 

And she’ll decide how he comes tonight.

“You enjoying yourself?” she teases, wrapping her hand around him and squeezing, moving her hand up and down to keep him right at the edge. 

“Could say the same about you,” he gasps out, hips pushing more insistently into her hand.

She considers him for a moment, leans forward and kisses his stomach and hip and thighs and the tip of his cock. “Yeah,” she finally decides. “I am having a good time.”

He huffs out a laugh. “I believe it.”

She goes to take him into her mouth again, wants to make him groan her name and lose control, feel him spill into her mouth. But he grabs her by the shoulders and tugs her upwards, slots his mouth over hers and kisses her deeply. She sighs into the kiss as she always does. 

He hauls her against him, fits a big hand under her thighs and lifts her. She squeals in surprise and wraps her legs around his waist, groans at the thick hardness of him pressing up between her legs. He carries her the few feet behind her to the countertop, safely away from the hot stove. 

The thing about kissing Brad, about being with him like this, is that it’s absolutely electric. He’s got a reputation for being a little attention deficient (and well, it’s not exactly an unearned reputation). But when he’s passionate and focused, when all of his attention is completely devoted to her, it’s like everything else fades into the background.

He works his hand into her hair, tugs lightly to tilt her head where he wants her. The feel of his beard against her neck makes her gasp and clutch at his shoulders, ankles digging into his backside to bring him closer. Her mind whirs with the overwhelming sensation of his big hands palming her breasts, squeezing tightly in a way that makes her toes curl and her hips jerk towards him. 

His teeth graze her neck, working a red mark of his own in the space where her shoulder and neck meet. It had been one of her only rules: hickeys in coverable places only. Carla and Chris were smug enough about them being together already (“We _told_ you.”) and Molly and Delany and Alex filled the kitchen with gagging noises any time they showed any signs of affection. No need to add visible hickeys to the mix. 

And then thick fingers tug at the waistband of her sweats, push her panties aside, and stroke at her entrance where she’s wet and slick for him. She gasps, pushes at his shoulder, drops her forehead to his chest, panting. “This is supposed to be about you,” she whines. 

He rolls his eyes and kisses her again, curls her fingers inside of her in a way that makes her gasp and dig her fingers into his back, desperate for an anchor. He twists his hand so his thumb can press against her clit while he fingers her. “How about,” he murmurs, kissing her forehead and cheek and lips and chin and neck, “this can be about both of us?”

Later, when they’re laying in bed, all flushed red and covered in sweat, Claire’s head pillowed on his chest while he wraps his big arms around her, both of them out of breath, she’ll kiss the place over his heart and let her hand drag enticingly over his abdomen to stroke lightly over his sensitive, half-hard cock. 

She wants to make a joke about a different kind of hot pocket, about making pastry rise—anything to make him groan and laugh and roll her beneath him and press her into the mattress for round two. 

But then he kisses her softly and slips from bed, pulling on his discarded boxer shorts. 

“Where are you going?”

“Bah, bah, bah. Just stay put, Claire. I’m about to make your day absolutely perfect.”

She thinks about the day she’s had up until now and the pleasant sort of ache and sensitivity between her legs right now, courtesy of his mouth, fingers, and cock, and wonders how he could possibly have made it better. He disappears through the bedroom door, whistling happily, and she admires his backside and the long, red lines on his back courtesy of her fingers. 

Lazily, she drags her hands over all of the places he’s marked her tonight: the red patches from his mouth and beard on her neck, the dark marks on her breasts from where he sucked her breast and nipple into his mouth with a growl, drags her fingers over the swollen, sensitive flesh of her sex. 

And then Brad is back, stopping dead at the foot of the bed with a raised eyebrow and a sly grin at the sight of her. “Couldn’t wait five minutes for me, Claire? Geez. And after I brought sustenance and everything.”

It’s then that she notices the bowls of steaming pasta in his hands, the buttery lemon sauce they’d been working on earlier in the evening coating each ear-like pasta shell. She sits up in bed, the sheet falling around her hips and reaches for the bowl greedily. 

“Gimme,” she demands, grinning when he slides back into bed next to her and passes her the bowl. 

“Boy, does the rest of the world know how fuckin’ ravenous you are after sex? Gonna need to start investing in a snack drawer in the bedroom, Claire.”

She glares at him through a mouthful of pasta, dipping her finger into the sauce and flicking some at him. But he catches her hand mid-air and draws her fingers into his mouth, licks at the digit until it’s completely clean in a way that reminds her of her own actions earlier in the kitchen. 

When he lets he go, he sits back against the headboard with a smug expression and eats a massive spoonful of pasta, dragging her tablet off his side of the bed and starting up the video streaming app she’d installed for them.

“Okay, okay, okay, where were we? Giles was givin’ an inspirational speech, right?”

“Yeah,” she says fondly, settling against his side and pressing a kiss to his bare bicep. It doesn’t seem worth it to tell him Giles gives a speech in _every_ episode. 

As they settle in for the night, she feels her chest swell with warmth and affection for the man beside her. His mind bebops around like no one else she knows, hopping from sex to pasta to Buffy in thirty seconds. She loves him and the life they’ve built.

Today was a good day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope i'm seein' you all in hell with me. i took a forty-five minute break writing this, trying to decide if i wanted her to--how do i say this--take the blowjob to completion. so this happened instead.


End file.
